AquaMail Forum
English - Android => How do I... => Topic started by: LondonAqua on February 17, 2017, 11:35:29 pm
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I use a "catch all" address so I can see who's selling my email, where all the emails arrive at a single email account.
How can I make replies automatically set the "Reply To" address to the same as the one I received the email on (which is correctly displayed in AquaMail)?
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But do you need to?
You can just add it as an identity / alias into the account, and it will be used as the "From" address when replying -- and then any mail app "on the other side" when replying will use this address when replying (since there won't be a Reply-To).
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I had a look at the identities features, and while great, it doesn't actually do what I need.
I use a different email (in the same domain) for every website I register with (like this one) or paper form that asks for an email. I have dozens and I don't have to "create" or configure them in advance, they just appear in the "catch-all" mailbox. When someone sells it, I know exactly who did it and can block them without affecting anyone else.
Whether it's the Identities feature (or a simple reply-to), the use of multiple, unregistered addresses is the key issue.
Perhaps the Identities function could accept a regex or pattern like *@my.domain.uk ?
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A "catch-all" mailbox is a server-side setting so that any unknown email addresses for my domain get delivered to a named mailbox.
For example, on my domain "anything-goes-here(at)my.domain.uk" (not my real domain) gets delivered to the predefined account "anon".
When I provide an email to register on a website, I enter something unique to that website and it gets delivered to the "anon" account, and AquaMail correctly shows the original address it was sent to.
This way if a website gets hacked, or they sell my address to third party marketing companies, I know which organisation sold it and can block them by changing that address on my email server to redirect to my spam account. It's like having a wildcard rule on the server that delivers any mailbox name to a specific account.
The only issue is if I have to reply to one of those emails, the from-address (or reply to) is not automatically set to the address the mail was sent to, but is from "anon(at)my.domain.uk"
Does that explain it better?
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No, but I've not looked recently. And if I did if be torn as I've been able AquaMail Pro user for years and would miss it!
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If you're interested, my email is hosted by one.com, who provide the catch-all functionality. It works really well - you'd be surprised who sells email addresses, including my local council and a major supermarket.
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Just by curiosity, do you know another email app doing what you need (reply-to)?
There are (have been?) two addons for Mozilla Thunderbird (Desktop), which at least allow to edit the sender on the fly:
https://github.com/absorb-it/Virtual-Identity
and
https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#editsender
Nowadays I think it's better/necessary to create an identity for each address I would like to use as a sender. Then every serious mail client will choose the correct identity when replying.
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Um, yes, sorry Aqua Mail doesn't let you freely edit the From address (not something that is needed often / or works at all, the way you have things set up is not common).
The problem with automatically choosing "your" address that the message "was delivered to" is that -- the app has no way to know that this *is* your address. A message might have "your" address in the BCC and a completely unrelated, someone else's address in the TO or CC.
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Ah, ok, I see the issue. I know the set up isn't common, but it is very useful :)
Would it be possible to have an option to set the from (or reply-to) on the primary recipient (to original To addressee) if no other addresses were present? Perhaps add an option to the "Reply To" setting which says "original receipient" rather than only accepting a specific address?
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Would it be possible to have an option to set the from (or reply-to) on the primary recipient (to original To addressee) if no other addresses were present? Perhaps add an option to the "Reply To" setting which says "original receipient" rather than only accepting a specific address?
I'd have to think about this -- as you wrote yourself, this scenario isn't at all common.
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@Kostya:
Please be aware, that such a feature could might cause complaining of users, because it will not work in most cases. Many mail server do not allow to change the sender without having created this new address as verified alias/identity.
Example
If your address is "myname@myprovider.com", this provider will not allow sending messages by spoofing with sender's address "othername@myprovider.com".
So 95 percent of users will get error messages, when it would be possible with AquaMail and they would try to do it.
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Obviously, this would have to be an option, not a default as it might affect existing users.
I understand the scenario isn't common, but it would be really useful to me and anyone else who uses a catch-all address.
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...also, setting the "Reply-To" field rather than the "From" will not change the account or security requirements of the server - reply-to is informative, not definitive.
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Sorry, I don't understand the relation to "reply-to"-field...
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Please be aware, that such a feature could might cause complaining of users, because it will not work in most cases. Many mail server do not allow to change the sender without having created this new address as verified alias/identity.
Yes I am aware of it at least for the From address. There is a reason email apps are based around the concept of an *account*.
It may be different for Reply-To headers, but I don't really know.
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Just to add my "2 cents".
With one of the private (non-commercial) servers I am using, - the users have an ability to generate/give unique e-mail addresses to businesses (messages to which would be forwarded to the real account(s) ). This allows cutting off the stream of spam once that address is sold or acquired by spammers after that business is hacked: a specific address can be blocked at the server.
(With all of that, I am still not giving my e-mail address to businesses unless I think it is necessary. -- The fact that they ask) does not matter.)
In Thunderbird, you can "Manage identities", and create alternative identities for the accounts, --- pretty much as it is done in Aquamail.
But, you can also write in ANY "From:" address by hand. These days, all that is "native", i.e. without any additional add-on or plugin. (@nica)
There is a huge difference between an alternative "From:" and "Reply-To:". The former does not expose (it may depend on the SMTP server configuration) the real e-mail address, which is important when you are dealing with Spammers or businesses who sell your address. "Reply-To:" exposes your real address.
The main limitation of Aquamail in this scenario is lack of possibility to write in a chosen (arbitrary) address to the field "From:"
I understand that the traditional e-mail model is based on the specific account. But the fact that (1) Thunderbird (which is one of the major e-mail clients) allows that and (2) some commercial services started offering an option of using alternative (including essentially arbitrary) addresses, indicates some shift in the paradigm.
So, it would be useful for some Aquamail users to be able to write in an arbitrary "From:" address.
What are the "cons" of enabling this?
I understand a potential concern that there will be complaints: "I wrote in my address as 'TheQueen@kremlin.ru', and my provider didn't allow sending that message (or re-wrote the headers)."
But the situation would be the same if one created a permanent identity with the same address without enabling the identity with the mail provider.
As the description for one of the "virtual identity" plugins referenced by @nica says:
"Using Virtual Identity you can simply edit the sender-address in your email to whatever you like - as long as your mail-server accepts the resulting mail. This is useful especially for people who have an own mail-server and don’t like adding every possible account as an Identity in the mail-client. "
Now, in regards to the suggestion of the OP to enable an automatic placement of the address in "To:" to "From:" in reply. I see the merit behind that suggestion, but from the technical point of view, it is not very "algorithmic" decision, but it includes heuristics. As Kostya pointed out, - the app has no reliable way {*} knowing reliably which is your address. Besides choosing between To: and Cc:, and your address not appearing in either of those fields because it was in Bcc: (or sent via a mailing list), there is yet another issue. The OP suggested:
Perhaps the Identities function could accept a regex or pattern like *@my.domain.uk ?
The problem with that is that some spam messages include multiple (including nonexistent) addresses at the same domain in To: or Cc:, e.g. alex@my.domain.uk, john@my.domain.uk, someothercommonname@my.domain.uk . Which one would you like Aquamail to use?
@Kostya
A viable scenario that I can see is as follows:
1. A per account option to add "Auto-choice for virtual addresses".
2. If that option is enabled, enter a domain(s) into sub-option configuration: my.domain.uk or {my.domain.uk, my.domain2.uk, and myother.domain.uk}
3. If "use the recipient's identity for replies" is enabled and no configured identity/account is found in the message, Aquamail offers a choice that would include all the addresses found in the message (in To: and Cc:, and if possible in the last "Received:"), and all configured identities and accounts.
{*} If the last, i.e. recipient's provider's MTA (mail-transfer agent) receives the message only for one address, then the last "Received:" header, which is generated by that MTA contains the specific address of the recipient to which the message was ultimately sent. But, if there were more than one recipients (even if any address was nonexistent), that "Received:" field may not have any address. That would make it impossible to determine which address it was sent to. At least, that's how sendmail behaves (I just verified that.)
tl;dr;:
1. Ability to "write in" any address in "From:" would be a welcome (and a safe) addition.
2. Please, consider implementing "respond using virtual identity" as described above.
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Yes, I do understand that there are use cases for "write in any From email address", and that sometimes it may even work (in terms of SMTP interaction). And yet I don't feel that we could reasonably put this on our priority list.
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This remains the one and only feature that I would dearly like AquaMail to have - I use sub-addresses heavily for spam partitioning, and it's frustrating to have to go and grab my laptop to reply to emails, or have to slog through adding an alias for a single use.
For what it's worth, Gmail supports both receiving and sending mail using their automatic aliases/"plus addresses" (username+suffix@gmail.com). To do so via their UI requires that you add an identity; to do so via SMTP requires no configuration. Does major provider support change the calculus for adding the feature?